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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (15102)	1/5/2005 10:43:35 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 20773

Great post Zonder. It was obvious before the war that the odds of this adventure ending in anything positive for the US were low. Bush 1 was wise not to upset the government of Baghdad- since he probably would have faced the same problems Bush 2 is facing. It's too bad Bush 2 did not have the advisors his father had. It's too bad he has gotten us in such a mess. At this point I think the best we can hope for is damage control. I see so many analogies on SI where people compare Iraq to WWII- totally in apt. In WWII we had Europe occupied- no one was occupied when we invaded Iraq. In WWII we really were liberating people- in Iraq we have only managed to liberate Iraqis from their own government, which, as you say, they could have revolted against if they really wanted to. I don't know if you are aware of how destroyed Germany and Japan were, by the end of WWII. Until I read up on it I had not realized how much destruction had been meted out upon Japanese cities. Those people who thought replacing a functioning government in a functioning country would be just like rebuilding the burned out ashes of Germany and Japan, don't know what those countries were like by the end of the war. I wonder if the people who so whole heartedly supported this fiasco will ever admit they were wrong? No, they'll probably just blame the bad result on someone else. It couldn't be their officious ill thought out adventurism that is to blame. It would have been impossible to justify the bombing of Japan as a "liberation" of her people- luckily for the US it didn't have to justify the war that way................. Firestorms in Japan After Germany surrendered in May 1945, America wanted to quickly end the war against Japan. As plans went ahead for a costly invasion of the Japanese islands, Major General Curtis LeMay took command of the bombing campaign against Japan, which had started in late 1944. Having studied British area-bombing tactics, LeMay decided to adopt them in a final effort to force the Japanese to surrender. On the night of March 9-10, 1945, LeMay's B-29 bombers attacked Tokyo, a city of 6 million people. Nearly 600 bombers dropped 1,665 tons of fire bombs on the Japanese capital, destroying 16 square miles of the city. The resulting firestorm killed 100,000 people, more than died at Hiroshima or Nagasaki from atomic bombs a few months later. Most of the victims were women, children, and old men. The B-29 crew members put on oxygen masks to keep from vomiting at the smell of burning human flesh. LeMay's planes continued firebombing Tokyo and more than 60 other Japanese cities in the following months. He thought he could end the war quickly by destroying Japan's economy and crushing the morale of the Japanese people. LeMay argued against using atomic bombs. He believed that his firebombing tactics would force Japan to surrender before American forces were scheduled to invade the homeland. On August 6, 1945, one B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, creating a firestorm that wiped out 70 percent of the city and killed 70,000 Japanese. The atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki three days later was somewhat less destructive due to the geographical features of the city. After some hesitation, Japan finally surrendered. The decision to use atomic weapons was fairly easy for American political and military leaders, given the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths already caused by the bombing of cities during the war. The outrage about such killing at the beginning of the war had been numbed by the horror of "total war" and the desire to quickly bring it all to an end. The Allied area bombing of civilians played an important role in undermining the will of the German and Japanese people to continue the war. But unlike the predictions of military strategists before the war, this did not happen quickly. For a long time, the bombing of German and Japanese civilians only stiffened their resolve to fight on. They wanted to surrender only after their countries lay in ruins, hundreds of thousands had perished, and all hope of victory was lost. .................. Every major city in Japan, with the exception of Kyoto, was targeted by LeMay in the spring of 1945 for destruction. LeMay wanted to prove the decisiveness of such bombing. In April 1945, he wrote General Larry Norstad "I am influenced by the conviction that the present stage of development of the air war against Japan presents the AAF for the first time with the opportunity of proving the power of the strategic air arm. I consider that for the first time strategic air bombardment faces a situation in which its strength is proportionate to the magnitude of its task. I feel that the destruction of Japan's ability to wage war lies within the capability of this command, provided the maximum capacity is extended unstintingly during the next six months, which is considered to be the critical period. (23) (24) The B-29 bombers fire-bombed urban areas, while fighter aircraft and medium size bombers dropped high explosive bombs on hamlets and the countryside. Kennett observed these "operations blurred further the distinction between military and civilian objective." (25)</> By the time of the atomic bombings scarcely any distinction remained at all.

To: zonder who wrote (15102)	1/5/2005 10:44:31 AM
From: Augustus Gloop	Respond to of 20773

Will reply when I have time

To: zonder who wrote (15102)	1/5/2005 8:32:57 PM
From: Yogizuna	Respond to of 20773

Perhaps the only benefit of keeping Saddam in power was the fact he was the "glue" that held Iraq together, much like Tito was in the old Yugoslavia. So now "we" have caused massive human suffering to get rid of the previous human suffering, and the problem is the suffering in Iraq may drag on and on, and then Saddam will go down in history as a hero in the minds of many Iraqis.

To: zonder who wrote (15102)	1/5/2005 10:29:46 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Where does the 100,000 civilian number come from? I challenged this on another thread recently and someone posted something from a project called Iraq body count which lists 3000 or so dead civilians and they count both insurgent deaths as well as the insurgent's victims. Re. the imposition of democracy on Iraq, there is a UNSC res. (1546) universally passed, which explicitly calls for this - so it is not just some kooky American ideal. Also consider the "insurgency" - Iraqis were not blowing themselves up trying to bring Saddam down, were they? Why do you think they feel more strongly about kicking the US out? I don't know about blowing themselves up, but a few hundred thousand Iraqis did give up their lives over the last couple decades trying to bring Saddam down. More than are involved in the current insurgency against the Americans and the pro-democratic Iraqis.